Expiration Dates

Many of you know of my dislike of attorneys. Most of our elected officials at the national level are attorneys and look where that's gotten us!

Anyway, here's another thing I'm pretty sure we can blame on attorneys:

To help my wife out, I normally do the weekly grocery shopping. When I pick up items, I normally check out the expiration date just to make sure it's still good. I've noticed lately that there aren't many expiration dates on stuff anymore. Now it's a "sell by" date.

So here's my question: how long is something good after it's been sold? If the "sell by" date is March 14, how long do I have to use the product before it's bad? Obviously if my cheese has turned green or my milk is lumpy, I'm throwing it out. But what about other products that may be "bad" but still look fine visually?

I'm sure the change is because of a lawsuit so the attorneys came up with this to weasel out of future lawsuits but I want my expiration dates back!